


seven, seven, seven

by animaAdministrator



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: F/M, Gen, pre-reaperhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 13:15:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1606484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animaAdministrator/pseuds/animaAdministrator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"did you say twewy writing prompts?</p>
<p>reaper backstories. pick a reaper, any reaper, and give them a hella backstory. THERE’S MY PROMPT FOR U TUMBLR USER CORVUS-CANTUS"</p>
            </blockquote>





	seven, seven, seven

Of all the things Shichi expected to be doing with his life at eighteen years old, carrying a girl’s amps for her was not one of them. And yet, here he was. Carrying a girl’s amps for her. But, as he would be quick to point out to his younger self, this time it’s different.  
  
For starters, the ‘girl’ was a fine specimen known as Nana, and he was obligated by bond of paycheck to lug around all of her technical supplies. He was supposed to be one of her techies, but he barely knew which wires went where. The only reason he was on the road with Nana and not on the street with the other homeless folks was because she had taken pity on him, and hired him as her official pick-things-up and put-things-down guy. At first, he’d thought it was a pretty good deal, especially since he didn’t even have to sleep with her… now, though, he was having second thoughts.  
  
He was jealous. So fucking jealous. It shouldn’t be Nana, up there on stage, singing their asses off to a roaring crowd; it should be him. He’d do anything to take her place.  
  
…But these were thoughts for later, when the stage manager wasn’t losing her head.  
  
“Those amps should have been on stage ten minutes ago!” she boomed, strutting right past Shichi with a commanding presence he’d seen hundreds of times before. It didn’t affect him too much by this point.  
  
“Alright, alright!” he hollered back.  
  
The woman disappeared into the front doors of the venue, while Shichi made his way to the back door. If the part up front was poorly lit, this place was plunged in total darkness, which made it a little difficult to find the door with a ludicrously heavy metal box in his arms. Unfortunately, he realized too late that it was locked — and there was literally no one on the other side who would have the common fucking decency to open it for him. He could kick the thing all he wanted. No one would hear, the stage manager would be down an amp, and he’d get a strike again. And probably lose his job.   
  
Shit. He had to figure out what to do. Shichi leaned his forehead against the cool surface of the amp, thinking. He could put the thing down and fish out his keys from his back pocket, but there was no telling if any of the crates around here were sturdy enough to handle an amp — and if he put it on the floor, chances were that he wouldn’t be able to grab it back up. Er… he could leave the amp in his arms and try to get the keys out of his back pocket, leaning the amp against the wall as a secondary support? Oh hell, no, that wouldn’t work — if the thing fell and broke and crushed his foot, he’d be in much deeper shit than just having it not on stage. That was two choices out. But, as a distant third option, he could always just go ahead with the “kicking” idea…  
  
Ah, fuck it. Might as well.  
  
Shichi stepped back, straining to keep the heavy weight of the amp balanced in his arms. It’d be a pain in the ass to stay like this long enough to kick the door, but it wasn’t as if he had any feasible alternatives at this point. And hey — YOLO, right?  
  
Alright, he’d have to make this quick. Shichi readjusted his weight again, sliding his right foot back as he supported most of the amp’s weight with his left arm. It was screaming and moaning for him to stop, but he didn’t much care, it would only be in agony for so long. He picked up his right foot and swung— his arms were hurting even more now— it’d be over in a second—  
  
The door opened. Shichi heard the collision with the amp before he felt it, and he felt it pretty fast. The two of them, man and amp, fell to the ground, one on top of the other.  
  
It was over in a second.  
  
Nana yanked the door back to a closed position when she heard it, heart beating fast. Was there someone out there? Had she hit them in the head? There was a dull thump from the other side of the door; oh, great, they were carrying something. Shit, she really hoped they didn’t break it. Nana cracked the door open again, peering out.  
  
What she saw was the feet, legs, and waist of her favourite techie; the rest of him was crushed beneath an amp.  
  
— — —  
  
It was only on Day Seven that Shichi actually learned what his entry fee was.   
  
“You’re going to be Erased,” the Game Master had told him, “so I’ll explain.”   
  
It was the job, naturally. The money, the road to stardom, Nana — he could win this Game and make up for a stupid mistake, or he could give it up and die.  
  
He was really leaning towards giving it up and dying, at this point.  
  
The Game Master was a short, heavyset man, with yellowed teeth and a pinstripe suit; he had a persistent stench of cigarette smoke. “Erase me, and you will be returned to the Realground to live out the rest of your borrowed life. Fail to erase me, and… you’re out of the hands of fate at that point. Who knows what will happen next?”  
  
“I fucking hate you,” Shichi announced. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of Pins.  
  
It was over in a second. The Game Master had him pressed to the wall with immense psychic power, and his Pins were functionally useless.  
  
“Truly,” the Game Master said from across the room. “It is a spectacle, how you’ve made it to the final day while simultaneously being so laughably weak. Perhaps there’s some kind of error in the system. …Or perhaps it’s just your talent.” The Game Master smiled. “Boy, do you know what happens when Players are about to be Erased?”  
  
“The Reaper who kills them gloats a lot,” Shichi guessed.  
  
He actually laughed at this one, loud and forceful. “Yes! That is what we do. But we do other duties as well — such as recruiting.”  
  
“Recruiting?”  
  
“I have no fucking idea how you’ve managed to live this long,” the GM said. “But whatever you did, you’re damn good at it. You’ve slipped out of countless situations and completed every single objective I sent you… to put a long story short, you could be fine Reaper material. And if you come with me now, that can be arranged — provided you’re willing to do anything I ask of you.”  
  
There was a pause.  
  
“I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you want.”  
  
The Game Master smiled again, and suddenly Shichi knew he had made an absolutely horrible decision. A second later, most of his thought processes stopped short.  
  
— — —  
  
One of the most important qualities of a Reaper was obedience to superiors, in this Game Master’s case. Grunts had to be willing to walk through Hell itself if their boss told them to. The GM had found in his life that, generally, small incentives and very forceful words were enough to nudge people in the right direction; that was what he employed here. Shichi would be presented with one simple task; eliminate a single target in the Realground, and he could take that target’s place, in addition to his Reaperly duties. To be perfectly honest, the GM expected waffling, and maybe even for the Player to refuse — that’s what most reasonable people would have done. But reasonable people don’t become Reapers.  
  
Three days later, indie news blogs exploded with news and pictures: the body of popular rock musician Nana was found, bleeding out in a dumpster.


End file.
